How to Avoid Losing Money on Bad Investments

Bad investment strategies not only lead to devastating losses of income, they can cause stress, feelings of failure and excessive worry and regret. Become educated about financial planning and learn the basics of how to avoid losing money on bad investments before giving your money away.

Steps

1. Set financial goals. Finding out how much money you want, and when you expect to get it, is the first step in financial planning and deciding on investment strategies.
   
2. Decide how much risk you can afford to take. Most of the opportunities that can make the most money are also risky; it's possible to lose all if not most of the investment and to have to worry regularly about how the investment is performing. If you are a nervous person, high risk investments may not be a good

How to Decide When to Sell a Stock

Many investors are unable to sell a stock; either they 'fall in love' with an investment, or are unwilling to admit a failed investment. Sell decisions should be made at the time of an investment.

Steps

1. Concentrate on selling stocks within your portfolio that are doing poorly, particularly if you cannot satisfactorily explain the loss as mere market emotion or an overreaction to a particular problem. William O'Neill compares a portfolio to a garden, you need to pull your weeds and not your flowers in order to have a profitable 'garden'. But do not allow growth in particular kind of investments that have done well in the past to unbalance your portfolio; rebalance it among companies and asset classes from time to time.
   

How to Calculate Dividends

Dividends are investment earnings that come from stocks and mutual funds that you invest in. When you buy stocks or participate in a mutual fund, you are buying shares of a company. That entitles you, the investor, to a portion of the company's earnings, known as dividends. Knowing how to calculate dividends helps you stay on top of your investments.

Steps

1. Locate the percentage dividend listed in the prospectus of the invested stock or fund.
   
   • You should always have a prospectus on your investments, but, if it's not immediately available, check the company's website or with your investment broker.
     
   • The percentage dividend will most likely be listed as a percentage of the original asking price

Investment Advice: Exchange Traded Funds As Part Of Your Investment Portfolio

'What should I invest in?' This is the most pertinent question for most individuals striving to formulate a financial plan. Zillions of books and millions of web pages are not sufficient to answer this question. This is because investment advice is not universal and one size does not fit all. It changes as per the unique situation and specific requirements of every individual. Thus, it is essential to consult an investment expert personally to devise a customised financial plan.

For their investment and retirement plans, many people do not want an actively managed portfolio but would rather invest in the lower cost option of passive funds, which will just track the selected market index. There are currently two main options available for passive investment: tracker funds or ETFs.

Investment Advice: Understanding ETFs

How to Create an Investment Plan

Creating a viable investment plan requires a little more than simply establishing a savings account and buying a few random shares of stocks. In order to structure a plan that is right, it is important to understand what you want to accomplish with the investments, define how to reach those goals and evaluate different types of investment options to decide which ones will aid in the achievement of those goals. The good news is that it is never too late to create and implement a personal investment plan and begin creating a nest egg for the future.

Steps

1. Determine your goals for the future. A carefully structured investment plan can be a means of achieving long-term or short-term goals. For example, one goal may be to generate funds for a child's college education, using returns from certain types of investments. Alternatively, another goal may be to create a portfolio that generates income for use during retirement. Knowing what you want to accomplish will

How to Build a Diversified Portfolio

Some of the main keys to long term wealth building are diversification and sticking with a plan. Consider the following when determining what to do with your serious, long term money.

Steps

1. Create an investment plan.
   
2. Stick with your investment plan - If you adjust your investment plan, do it for the right reasons, such as a change in the long-term outlook for one of your investments or the realization that an investment no longer meets your goals.
   
3. Diversify and rebalance - By spreading your money among a variety of investments that may rise and fall at different times, you'll avoid taking those big "hits" that your entire portfolio could suffer when one asset class is hit hard. You will also need to "rebalance" your holdings occasionally to make sure the

How to Invest Like an Index Fund

Investing is thought to be a very demanding task that needs years of training and higher education. This is true for big and complex transactions, but it is not true for most of the time. It takes ten minutes to build a portfolio that tracks major indices like index funds. Yet, many companies charge fees for such funds.

Steps

1. Choose an index you like. You could choose S&P 500, for example. It is the most followed index in the US stock market.
   
2. Try to get a list of the biggest components of that index by size. In other words, what are the biggest companies in the S&P 500? (Decide how you are going to determine size by the way. Are you going to go with market capitalization?
   
3. Pick the biggest ten companies. General Electric and Exxon Mobile will most likely be in every index

How to Pick a Quality Stock for Investment

There are certain characteristics that identify quality stocks for investment purposes. This entry discusses some of the factors that may be used to identify winning stocks.

Steps

1. A good place to start when looking for a stock to purchase is the list of top percentage gainers for that particular day. These lists are found on USA Today, CNN.Money, and elsewhere.
   
2. From this list, emphasize stocks close to or higher than $10/share. Stocks much under $10 are generally of lower quality. Although one can purchase more shares of a lower-priced stock, that doesn't necessarily mean that your chances of a successful investment are greater; in fact they may be reduced with so-called "penny" stocks. 
3. Check the latest quarter earnings report. These are easily found on the Yahoo Finance website. After

Stock Market Going Down !!! What To Do???

Yesterday, the stock market in every region is red (going down). The Composite Index for KLSE (BSKL) is sitting around 1515.  The price of almost every stock is going south. What has happened to the world market just now. According to expert or analyst (something they call), the reason for this going down was uncertainities in political aspects in Bahrain and Libya. This 'political situation' has raised the world oil prices and hence increasing the expenditure of company which affect it's profits. So...simple to say, the stock price is going down because of this 'political situation'.

I was very excited when this happened. No, no, no... I don't mean 'the political' but the stock market. When the stock market is going down, it's make one more oppurtunity for me to 'train' my emotion to stay calm whatever happens to stock market. Arrgghhh...I can't write properly just now. There was many things in my mind just now (I think I can't write a book now). Actually, there were many books out there writing about

Tactical Asset Allocation

For someone this topic is quiet boring and far from what they have think about what an investment should be. But, trust me this Tactical Asset Allocation is so handful and very powerful tools to help you achieve handsome reward in investment.

What Does Tactical Asset Allocation Mean?

 Tactical asset allocation (TAA) is a dynamic investment strategy that actively (per quarter, half or a full year) adjusts a portfolio’s asset allocation. The goal of TAA strategies is to balance risk and reward by apportioning a portfolio's assets according to an individual's goals, risk tolerance and investment horizon.

The three main asset classes - equities, fixed-income, and cash and equivalents - have different levels of risk

The Reason To Buy or Sell

 If you not have any stock, then you should first buy a stock. For those who has own a stock, there will be a doubt (most of times) when you want to buy a new stock.

Should I buy this stock....or....Should I just pass this stock.

This is common a question for many investors.


The first thing to do before buying a new one is to determine whether your new buy is better than a previous one. If not, then you should not buy it whatever attractive the price is.

Averaging Down. Should or Shouldn't ???

I think this question is common for most investor. It is mainly because there are no specified answer to this question. For one it is 'yes' but for someone else it's maybe 'no'. In this post it all about my opinion in this averaging down (some would say average down).

For someone new, averaging down is a technique (or skill??)  that is developed to have a maximum benefit to an investor in market reaction (in hope). Some will say right, and some will say wrong. For me, there is no right or wrong. Both are right and both are wrong. Neither are truely right or wrong.

I have read years ago that Averaging Down is among 10 Common Mistakes of investors/traders. I also know some people who make huge profits with Averaging Down.

When the Right Time to Buy Stock?

There are people keep asking when is the best time to start invest in stock markt. Then, the answer is...

"The best time is today. The second best is tomorrow.
The earlier the better"

How I gonna start if I don't have any money. There are saying "Start Early Start Small". You can use a few bucks you get from your bonus to start. In Malaysia (KLSE), you can buy a share as low as 100 shares. So, start by putting your bonus into the market and add it more as you have more knowledge and money (of course).

Are the worst is over? "L" shape.

I've been thinking for a while what should I write about in this post. There are some topics in my mind (should it about my journey as investor, investors' book that I've been read or my opinion in the current market).

Then, I decide to share some information which I get from a trv program. It was Stock Watch by TV3 (one of tv channel in Malaysia).

That night the guest is Choong Khuat Hock.

(Choong Khuat Hock has 20 years’ experience in investment banking, having worked in London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia for international financial institutions such as Barclays Bank and Dresdner Bank. He was rated one of Malaysia’s top analysts for most of the 1990s. Hock is director of research and a fund manager at